[Review] Sager NP8651 / Clevo P650SE with GTX 970m HTWingNut's REVIEW

yep, sure do! loving this machine!

the panasonic screen is beautiful, i got the matte version. actually am happy that i didnt go with 4k after all, even on 3k i have to use 150% scaling *lol* but even the non-scaled stuff is juuust big enough to read. on 4k it would be a factor 2 smaller than at 3k...
colors are vibrant, 1080p scaling looks sharp, have a lil light bleed but its only noticeable on all black background (lucky), viewing angles are wide.

so yeah, definitely recommendable

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Thanks with mysn.co.uk I can get the 3K QWHD Pansonic VX16T020G00 (2880*1620) Matte IPS display for only £44 more than the 1080p display. Sound like you're recommending that option? I'm liking the fact that it's still matte. At 150% scaling this would look (mostly) like a 1920 x 1080 display, right? At least for things that scale correctly. Any higher resolution and I think my eyes would have problems, but I've seen a 1080p display on a 15.6" and I'm fine with that. So at 150% scaling most things look sharp in Windows?

Outside of gaming, most of my usage with be MS Office 2013 (Excel, Word, Powerpoint and Outlook), web browsing (Firefox and/or Chrome), VLC (for movies), Photoshop CC and iTunes - should these all scale acceptably well?

 

BTW this is the spec I'm considering (from msn.co.uk) for an XMG P505:

3K QWHD Pansonic VX16T020G00 (2880*1620) Matte IPS screen + £44
Nvidia 970M Graphics (+£79)
16GB (2x8192) SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM 1600MHz Crucial Ballistix Sport +£136
500GB SATA-III SSD Samsung 850 EVO Series (MZ-75E500B) + £210 (the 850 Pro would be another £77...)
Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 (with Bluetooth) + £19
Standard 24 month collect and return warranty +£0 (nice!)
Windows 8.1 +£69

They use MX-2 Arctic Silver thermal paste as standard

Look okay?

 

Looks good! Should treat you well

 

Looks fine so long as you don't have random write heavy work loads (you probably don't and would know if you do).

 

windows is pretty good at scaling but not perfect, so some sub menus like the device manager for instance would have a bit of blurriness to them at anything above 125% scaling. i tried to go 125% for that exact reason, but 150 is just easier to work with on an everyday basis.

the same goes for tools & programs, cpu-z is super blurry whereas gpu-z is super sharp. excel is neither super sharp nor blurry, but rather....smooth? dunno how else to call it vlc doesmt really scale, so buttons are quite small, but as mentioned before, 3k non-scaled is juuuuust big enough to still be readable/usable...

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I'm sorry to hear you have that issue. I can run 4K native while on battery just fine with my P651SG. Never seen the problem you describe. I also have the Sharp IGZO panel. So it must be something specific to your configuration that's the culprit...

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

On second thoughts, I might just go for the 1080p IPS screen (it's advertised as a Full-HD AU B156HAN01.2 (1920*1080) AU B156HAN01.2 Matte IPS panel - is this one okay?), as I'm not sure I'll be able to get the full benefit of a 3K display with "only" a 970M (jaybee83 has a 980M) and I'm concerned about Windows scaling issues, especially as I need to use Remote Desktop a lot).

 

that AUO panel has been determined to be a very closed second best FHD panel, so you should be happy with it

 

Great, thanks! Just hope I don't get any light bleed issues!

 

Hello Cakefish, what config do you have?
I have the NP8651, 4K Sharp IGZO display, Windows 8.1, 16GB RAM, 128 GB Crucial SSD and 1 TB HDD. Intel i7-4720.
The problem I mentioned does not occur when I ran Ubuntu 14.10, runs fine at 4K on battery and power.
Only occurs when display is set to 4K on battery which is strange. Anyway the 4K res is too small for most applications.
Have you had any glare issues with the screen? It is supposed to be glossy with 'antiglare'.

 

BTW should a Clevo P650SE (rebranded) be able to utilise 2133 mhz RAM without changing the stock (in this case XMG) bios?

 

depends if the integrated memory controller of the CPU can handle it. also, the ram sticks have to be able to handle it as well, naturally

 

I was thinking of this RAM which is sold as 2133Mz RAM, so ought to be able to handle it, right?
http://www.dabs.com/products/kingston-16gb-2133mhz-ddr3l-cl11-sodimm-hyperx-impact-9SDZ.html?src=7

The CPU will be an i7 4620HQ (2.6Ghz)

Are there any other potential issues (e.g. extra heat, lower battery life), or should the Clevo P650SE chassis be able to cope with this okay anyway?

 

the sticks aint the problem, just check if the CPU can handle it. it "should" be fine, however no warranties there since the IMC is just rated for 1600 Mhz "officially" (by intel, that is).

sure ull get extra heat and lower battery life, but in a range that is barely measureable and especially not discernible by the user

 

I know the CPU can definitely handle 1866Mhz, as the reseller offers 1866Mhz RAM as an option, also Crucial list 1866Mhz (but not 2133Mhz RAM, though they might just not sell it), but am not 100% sure about 2133Mhz RAM in a i7 4720HQ Clevo P650SE - does anyone have this config and can they confirm whether this works okay? Thanks

 

even a user confirming with his/her cpu wouldnt help, since each and every cpu is different. its the infamous silicon lottery were talking about here

crucial doesnt offer 2133 ram yet, only brands at that speed are from kingston, corsair and g.skill

 

I see, so there's no guarantee it work actually work? If I bought it from Dabs and tried it and it didn't work, do you think I'd still be able to return it (and then get some 1866MHz RAM)?

 

well the good thing about 2133 ram is u can always underclock it for stability i cant answer that question with 100% certainty. u just gotta try and see what u get chances are good that the 2133 sticks will run just fine, just wanted to make sure ure informed

and sure, i dont see a reason why a return wouldnt be possible. check their return policy beforehand though!

 

How much thicker is this than say the MSI GS60 Ghost? I really like the Ghost, but not the price.

 

About 5mm thicker for the 970M model and about 0.5Kg heavier. AFAIk it's a little bit wider (i.e. side-to-side), but not as deep (front-to-back) as the GS60.

I was toying between this and the MSI GS60 for a while, I prefer the look of the GS60, but the P650SE is much easier to upgrade the HDD/SDD and RAM on (and tweak - e.g. Prema Mod bios), and from what I can tell runs a bit cooler and quieter (two cooling fans for the GPU and a slightly larger case probably help). The battery life, whilst still not great, is a bit better on the P650SE too, the GS60 has terrible battery life. The GS60 also seems more fragile, e.g. there are quite a few reports of the thin bezel material seperating from the screen lid.

Some models of the P650SE come with a 150W power supply others with a 180W supply (all XMG P505s now come with a 180W supply, no matter the GPU). 150W is barely enough for this machine, so that's something to bear in mind. I think think the GS60 comes with a 150W PSU, but it's possible it may not need as much power as the P650SE

I suspect the P650SE will also be more straightforward for local computer shops to repair in case of problems (though I managed to get a free 2 year collect and return warranty anyway with the XMG P505 I bought from MySN)

 

I've been considering this notebook as well, but have a question about the 4K screen. On many 4K screens, downsampling to 1080p yields a crisp image with no interpolation. This is opposed to, say, a 3200x1800 screen which still interpolates when reduced to its quarter resolution (1600x900).

Does the Sharp 4K screen not interpolate (make things blurry) when downscaled to 1080p? I figure it may be nice to get a machine with a 4K screen even if I'm running it at 1080p while all the software devs work on making their applications play well with dpi scaling.

 

I can't comment on the 4K screen, but I decided to go with a 1080p screen because:

a) It's matte (I prefer matte to glossy)
b) A 970M GPU will have a hard time getting good gaming fps at higher than 1080p resolution (and running natively at 1080p is usually better than downscaling), at least on the latest games. A 980M may have less problem
c) Windows scaling issues for 3K and 4K screens can be annoying, especially if using remote desktop (which I need to do often)
d) [Minor] a 4K screen probably uses more power and generates more heat than a 1080p screen (unconfirmed)
e) It's cheaper!

 

Well it's definitely cheaper and it is a fact that 4K screens consume more power than 1080p ones, so I'll admit those are great points to skip 4K. However, if there is no interpolation when you downscale from 4K to 1080p, it will look identical to a 1080p native screen due to 1080p being exactly one quarter the size of 4K. I once tried this with a 4K monitor at Best Buy, lowering the desktop resolution to 1080p and it was perfectly downscaled. No interpolation.

While scaling today is a huge mess, it may not always be this way. Having a 4K screen will make you future proof for whenever things get better. However this is still an "IF" scenario, so not exactly the most reliable way of decision making.

Finally, I'm a graphics designer who needs a good screen for the job. The 4K sharp panel should be around 95% sRGB whereas I have no idea what IPS panel is going into this thing. I know the base config has a TN panel but many resellers offer an IPS panel upgrade. For example, XoticPC offers an "LG Panel", but I simply don't know which panel this means. I've had mixed results with LG panels - some looking decent and others having an absolutely horrible yellow color cast. I typically prefer AUO's AVHA panels over LG's IPS. Sharp's IGZO panels are preferred as well, another good reason to go 4K.

 

I still haven't bought one of these, but to me the most important part of any laptop is the screen. After all everything that's in there is designed to display an image on screen, so if the screen is crap there's no point to any of it.

Anyway, I posted this a couple of weeks ago. The regular 1080 screen they used on that batman machine looked like crap, it just boogles the mind why they would do such a thing. I can't tell you which panel it was, but it looked bad.

next to it they had 650SE with a 4K matte screen. Looked far better than the Batman machine, scaled it down to 1080, still looked fine. I did notice some graininess though, so I took a look at one with 4K glossy and that is the one I'd go with, looks great and no graininess. I assume these were Sharp screens, they just say 4K igzo.

I don't know if any of this helps your decision. I'm still undecided since my current laptop is fine and has one of those AUO 95% NTSC matte screens ( 2 year old 150HM or whatever the laptop model was ). It's a case of: "why do I really need a new laptop?" and I can't find a really convincing answer to that question. For 2K you can buy a new camera, a lens or two, probably a better investment.

 

My XMG P505 is configured with this AVHA screen:
15.6" (39.6cm") Full-HD AU B156HAN01.2 (1920*1080) Matte IPS (100% sRGB)

 

interpolation on 3K and 4K screens is a non-issue, since the pixel density is so high that even if interpolation occurs (as it definitely does when scaling from 3K to 1080p), its just not discernible. i can speak from experience (see sig), scaling to 1080p looks super crisp so no worries about the gpu being able to drive native res or not. its just awesome to have the extra work space on your desktop!

power consumption is also a non-issue, since the IGZO tech is designed for low power consumption especially on high-res screens. and even without IGZO in the case of the samsung 4K screen: were talking about 2-3W additional consumption here, that doesnt really make a huge dent in battery life

scaling issues in windows 8.1 are definitely existent, although not really major, i would say. with the release of windows 10 this will be a thing of the past, and RTM is only several months out, so yeah, future-proof is indeed 3k/4K and not 1080p

as for pricing differences: thats the only valid point left imho, since i cannot and will not judge people for the size of their budget. that will have to remain a subjective decision for each and everyone to make

cheers!

 

Interpolation is not perceptible **to you**

I won't use a 4k display scaled to 1080p. It IS perceptible to me, and I would prefer a native 1080p display.

 

alright, lets set apart "perceptible" from "downright horrible blurriness"

 

It's blurry enough that I wouldn't use it. You still say it's "not discernible," when it clearly is to me....even at 4k.

 

i guess subjective perception is the deciding factor with issues like interpolation / lightbleeding / coil whine / fan noise / laptop & psu weight. thats why there will never be a perfect machine, since opinions just differ way too much from each other.

i can only say that the panasonic 3k matte display that i have does not have any issues scaling to 1080p and everything looks clear and crisp on it do what u will with that!

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Div033- I have the Sharp IGZO 4K panel and I am currently using it at 1080p and it works very well, clear and not blurry at all. I cannot perceive any interpolation at all.

 

Thanks eric, and everyone else who commented on this matter. In regards to IGZO power consumption, it still requires more power to drive a high resolution like 3200x1800 or 4K. I'm still trying to see if my current machine (Dell m3800) can be salvaged, but if not I'm strongly considering a 4K Sager NP8651 or a 1080p NP8652, as long as the stock panel is the AUO B156HAN01.2. I'm mainly looking at buying from XoticPC as they have a very active presence on these boards which helps inspire confidence. They also give the option to remove branding which I thought was a really nice touch.

Here's a follow up question: Does this laptop have any coil whine/electrical noise? My m3800 is very noisy when at full battery and plugged in, and even makes my desktop PC's power supply noisy when plugged into a socket on the same power circuit. I'm having a tech come out one more time to see if a second motherboard replacement or A/C adapter swap would fix it, but I'm not very confident it will work.

 

I have the same (see my sig), except for a i7-4710HQ instead of the i7-4720HQ and different brands of SSDs, with no HDD.

Glossy and anti-glare (matte) are essentially mutually exclusive, it's not really possible to have both at the same time. Indoor use is fine my for needs, as the screen gets bright enough to get rid of most reflections.

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

Unlike the Batman, the P650SE/SG hasn't had a single report of coil whine so you'll be fine...

 

It uses a totally different PCB/Power circuitry design (which does not have to go to quite the same heights of delivery) and as above I have not heard any complaints.

 

Hey guys I have the p650se with stock 306 bios & EC and stock vBios running on WHQL driver 344.75.

I just tested with firestrike and my graphics score was barely 7403...from what I could see most people where getting scores in the 7525 area.

Any idea what the reason for this would be?

 

i hope youre aware that this difference equates to 1.6% and is thus negligible....

 

I just like to milk my rig for all that it's got

On OC with stock vBios i now have 8409 graphics score with +135 on core and +295 on memory(my default memory is 2505 instead of 2500 for some reason so I went with 295 instead of 300 to get a round number ) .

I can still push memory higher probably but haven't had the time to test yet.

 

Some may have faster RAM (e.g. 1866Mhz or even 2133Mhz), which might make a small difference (though not much)

 

make sure to test ur vram clocks with benches, with increasing clocks ull see an increase in scores until u either reach a plateau (gpu core is bandwidth saturated) or a sharp dropoff (vRAM error correction kicking in since ure closing in on its limit. at this point u wont see any artifacts or crashes yet though)

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That should affect the overall score but not the specific graphics score.

@jaybee83

That's exactly what I'm doing. Thanks for the tip!

 

Ram has a small impact on performance as it is so yes the GFX score should basically show no change (except for usual run variation).

 

My stock FS GPU score is always 7500++.. I don't even have a proper RAM set up (4GB Hynix RAM + 8GB Crucial DDR3-1600 RAM) ..

 

My P650SE is on its' way to me (Australia) from EuroCom.

I plan to setup a multiboot/hackintosh on multiple drives.

Is there anything that may prevent this from being possible on the p650se? Or common issues with it?

 

Ok so I'm starting to get pissed....

My graphics score is never more than 7400 on 344.75...that sucks.

Can this be linked to not having all windows 8.1 updates installed or other programs?

Also looks like my vRam is limited to 445-455 Mhz(on stock vBios)...anything above that and my score go down...at arround 480 I crash and burn.

 

u mean +445 mhz? thats not too bad...

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I ordered a laptop just like this one and I was wondering if switching down to a 150 w adapter is a bad idea? The adapter has the same voltage (19V) but of course the amps are 7.9 instead of 9.5 with the 150 watt adapter. I'll probably undervolt the system also. I guess knowing the power draw when the system is stress tested with prime95 or furmark would probably tell you the full wattage.

 

Yeah ..that's not too bad as far as Oc Limits go(although I saw alot of people on +500or above)

But I still can't understand why i have 100-150 less firestrike score on stock clocks than many other people.

The only thing that I can think of is the fact that I just installed windows 8.1 when I started testing and for some reason my windows updates are not working. They give error during reboot and roll back.

 

Ok...so I just observed a weird thing...maybe I'm crazy but bare with me here.

My 3dmark scores looks like they are affected by the starting temp of the GPU...

I just observed that the first run in 3dmark firestrike when starting the laptop from cold was 6573 overall with 7483 graphics score.

After that second run (starting with 33ºC on the gpu) was 6535 with 7432 graphics.

Third one (starting at 38º C) went down to 6501/7402

Max fans on...wait for gpu to go down to 31º before starting 3dmark firestrike again and scores went back up.

Is this normal?